BELLOWS FALLS — Conceptual designs for the renovation, preservation and expansion of the Miss Bellows Falls Diner call for the diner to be moved five feet back from Rockingham Street, and an addition built on its western side.
Rockingham For Progress, the group behind the renovation of the beloved diner, plans a “listening session” for the community next week, and to receive comments on the first set of drawings from the design team at Austin Design Cooperative in Brattleboro.
Charlie Hunter, one of the main proponents of the restoration, said the drawings released last week were conceptual, and could be subject to change.
The drawings by architect Raphael Rosner call for the 80-year-old diner to be moved five feet away from Rockingham Street, to protect it from passing traffic and plowing, according to Jeff Dunbar, another leader of Rockingham For Progress. Rosner, along with Tom Chalmers and Bryan Louisell of Austin are working on the diner project.
Dunbar said moving the diner off site for its restoration is also being considered since the diner has to be moved anyway for its new foundation.
The plans include an addition to the house 20 more seats, as well as a handicapped bathroom and a new kitchen, Dunbar said. The original diner has 32 seats, but is not handicapped accessible.
He said the decision on how and where the historic diner would be restored has yet to be finalized.
Restoring the diner is important to the overall Bellows Falls business community, Dunbar said, and seeks to strengthen the northern edge of the downtown area. “The project is much bigger than the diner,” he said.
He said moving the diner away from the road is important to protect it, and the preliminary plans show an outside dining area between the road, sidewalk and the diner.
He said the diner is sitting on a very poor foundation, and the kitchen in the back of the diner car isn’t on a foundation at all. He said preliminary site work showed that the predominantly sandy soil could support the addition. “It will allow for proper drainage,” he said.
He said some people had suggested moving the diner to another location in Bellows Falls, to give it more space, such as a location on The Island. But he said such an idea was immediately nixed by the National Park Service. The Worcester Lunch car, No. 771, arrived in Bellows Falls in 1944 and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
“We want it to serve our community for another 80 years,” he said.
He said Rockingham For Progress, a local non-profit group which bought the diner last year from owner Brian McAllister, has so far raised about $200,000 toward what is expected to cost $1 million. The diner has been closed since the pandemic.
The group hopes to maintain ownership of the diner but turns it over to a qualified operator.
While some people have projected that the diner would reopen in 2025, both Dunbar and Hunter said that may be too optimistic. “2025? we can’t commit to that,” Dunbar said.
Dunbar said the timetable for the project will largely be driven by the grants and tax credits the project receives. He said that thousands of hours from volunteers have already gone into the project.
Dunbar said the RFP is doing fundraising and is also raising funds selling items such as diner coffee mugs, pins of the building, and special specialty mixes. For more information about fundraising efforts, see www.missbellowsfalls.com.
Rockingham For Progress will hold a meeting on Thursday, March 28, at the Rockingham Free Public Library at 7 pm, to discuss the progress on the project.